Together by This Christmas Tree

cally mcgregor
The next week passed slowly, with pub nights too long and too full of drunk people, and the days lonely with Damien spending his week in Las Vegas with his girlfriend, Isabelle. Things were just slow and boring.

I spent Monday and Tuesday breaking out the Christmas decorations, from the deepest darkest hells of our apartment’s storage area, with plenty of big plastic boxes, and our apartment was soon cramped.

Our apartment was big and modern, with floor to ceilings windows and an elevator throughout our entire apartment building. Our apartment building itself was filled with artwork and small knick knacks, including a large grand piano from when Isabelle was a kid, which I played far too often for my own good. Isabelle had spent six months teaching me how to read music and play, with Damien spending all his time on his job, where he was a lawyer in the city.

Before I knew it, the apartment became a frosty winter wonderland, filled with the decorations that Damien had spent years figuring out and collecting for a holiday I despise. But, every year, it was my responsibility to put all the decorations up, to make it all work out like it was supposed to. Like everyone else I knew. Damien and Isabelle had an adorable relationship, meeting in law school on Christmas, and getting together on New Year’s. Things just seemed so perfect for them, something I wanted, but would never achieve.

I sighed, shielding my eyes from the mass ensemble of bright Christmas lights decorating the walls and ceiling, into my plain Jane bedroom, still with Christmas lights but for look rather than holiday. I was changing quickly, hating Christmas in towns like Scottsdale, because every restaurant celebrated in vibrancy, it seemed.

For work in December, I had to wear sheer green tights and bright and tight red shorts, with the usual pub shirt, and I chose white. I hated this, and I was sure that the bartender, Tony, would put a Santa hat on my head and hope that I wouldn’t throw a glass at his head again (a drunken mistake of last year).

But as I walked down the road, I finally let my thoughts open that box. The box where I had hidden John, a kind of happy memory that I would open up when Christmas really came rolling around, with candles lit reminding me of my father, and the gifts under the tree reminding me of how he died.

It seemed I just couldn’t stop thinking about him. But I was hoping that box where I hid John, for the eighteen hours I knew him, would keep me going, keep me from sitting silently on the couch while people opened my gifts and acted happy.

I was trying to keep that box locked until December 24th, when things really began to go downhill. But I kept poking and prodding at this box, wanting him now more than ever.